From the north

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

My 25 year old son is working in London. He's been asked if he'd be interested in mentoring some disadvantaged youths as an example of someone who has made it against the odds.

My son is white, able bodied, straight and middle class, decent degree, full and close family support etc. He suspects that because he has a northern accent he is perceived at work to be from some sort of underpriviliged background, when in reality he has wanted for nothing all his life.

And I don't think its about polish or confidence or cultural capital; he has plenty of these. Wears the right clothes, been skiing, goes to galleries etc

Do people in London really think we have it so bad up here?

People openly admit to discriminating against people with regional accents and/or are perceived to be working class on here and it is clear that many people in London think that life as they know it does not exist outside the M25, so it could be that the person/people who have made this suggestion to your DS really do think that.

I'm from Leeds and one of the times I was working in London, someone genuinely asked if I was excited about all the shops they had in London. Cue a confused face from me and a comment about 'there being shops in Leeds too, and I wasn't particularly interested in those either'.

Why didn’t he ask them what they meant?

The short answer is the no, not everyone in London thinks about the North like that. That would a rather gross generalisation, wouldn’t it? Almost like the ones about the North...

Depending on the sector, having any kind of non-RP accent could be relatively unusual. I suppose there might be someone staggeringly ignorant enough to equate that with being underprivileged.

Is he state educated? I am, but I have an RP accent. I was amazed to discover I was literally the only state-educated person in the room once during quite a large team meeting in a professional services firm. Again, I don’t consider that a mark of under-privilege, but maybe there’s someone out there who does.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been made fun of for my northern accent by Londoners. Not to mention all the jokes about cobbled motorways, whippets and flat caps. Some of it said in good humour and some of it not

I think he was just a bit taken aback and only worked out later that everyone else who had been asked was black or Asian or from an immigrant background.

He is state educated and yes, many of his team are not. And he likes football and he's a bit of a lad. But as he said, he's grown up in a fairly sheltered environment; he has no idea what its like to live on a dodgy estate in London and go to a terrible school.

He really needs to ask why he was asked to do this.
If he has absolutely none of the experience they are looking for he can tell them he isnt doing it and why. (and shame them into explaining why they thought he was from a disadvantaged background in the first place!)

I guess maybe he doesn’t ‘fit’ in the way that majority (?) of other graduates in the company do, but weird to equate that with under-privilege.

He could be a good mentor anyway as it’s not all about ‘being an example’. It would be good experience. Part of mentoring is giving the young person contact with someone does a particular kind of work - contact they wouldn’t have otherwise - and who will answer questions, help them think about applying etc etc.

Well yes, I mean he’s a lovely lad, friendly and approachable, can talk to anyone, sees beyond the obvious. So in that respect, I’m sure he’d be a good mentor.

I think he’s more concerned about not having any experience of what these kids might be dealing with and giving them advice that’s absolute bollocks.

I know someone who got into Oxford on 2 As and a B

Due to coming from Doncaster

I imagine there was a little more to it than that Ilove.

I think there's an argument that someone getting AAB from a low performing school has achieved much more than someone with 5 A*s from a school where everyone gets similar results, because they've achieved far above average for their peers.

No idea if that's relevant to the person from Doncaster or the OPs DS. Are they trying to suggest that going to state school, like the majority of the population, is a sign of 'making it against the odds' .

I think he’s more concerned about not having any experience of what these kids might be dealing with and giving them advice that’s absolute bollocks

Anyone who is genuinely concerned about giving advice to kids that's absolute bollocks because of their different background is highly unlikely to give advice that's absolute bollocks.

It sounds more like he was offended by the insinuation that he's anything like the other mentors or by the mentees.

I think the best way to approach mentoring someone who might be less privileged than you is to be aware of their lack of privilege and of your own privilege - it sounds like he's acutely aware of his privilege already so I'm sure he'll be fine.

Do they get any training? It would help if he could learn a bit about coaching, because it’s more in the questioning than the advice. Ultimately these kids will need to come up with their own solutions, but having someone help them think through things by asking questions and maybe making suggestions if anything comes to mind could be really helpful.

The other thing that he will bring, which he probably doesn’t realise is valuable, is just taking the time to be interested and to listen to someone. That can make a massive difference to someone who doesn’t have many supportive adults in their lives.

Some of it is just exposure too. I had a friend who was a teacher and when I was at a professional services firm I used to have her bring groups of kids in and we’d set up some kind of activity for them and I’d get a couple of other colleagues in to talk to them and ask questions. Things that were helpful that wouldn’t have occurred to me included:
Seeing the inside of that kind of office. Helpful partly because they started to think about wanting to work in an unfamiliar environment and partly so they wouldn’t be so wide-eyed and overwhelmed next time they were in that kind of setting.
Finding out about jobs they didn’t know existed and being able to ask about salaries. Thereby realising that there is a whole world of work in between low-paid jobs and being a footballer/celebrity.
Being in a semi formal setting where food and drink are being handed around and learning the etiquette around that by observing what others did.

They had a standard AAA+ offer

yes, my only experience of being discriminated about was by northerners who were extremely rude because I was from the 'shandy drinking south' and why should have to go down south to get the type of job they want rather than be able to have the same job & money in Yorkshire

eergh because it's the country's capital & also costs a lot more to live there?

In my experience (although I haven't met everybody) those from the North do complain a lot about it not being so privileged

It sounds more like he was offended by the insinuation that he's anything like the other mentors or by the mentees

He wasn’t offended Longines, more bemused. We had a few jokes about him being our little prince and jokes about him not wearing his cloth cap and clogs to work any more. His accent is actually quite posh for our area.